Stoddard, Grant

PERSONAL:

Born in Thurrock, Essex, England. Education: Attended Thames Valley University.

ADDRESSES:

Home—New York, NY. E-mail—grantstoddard@hotmail.com.

CAREER:

Journalist. Nerve.com, columnist.

WRITINGS:

Working Stiff: The Misadventures of an Accidental Sexpert (memoir), HarperPerennial (New York, NY), 2007.

Contributor to periodicals, including Men's Health, Glamour, British GQ, and New York.

SIDELIGHTS:

When Grant Stoddard moved from England to the United States at age twenty-one, he wanted only to find a girlfriend and a job. Unlucky in love, he ended up writing the "I Did It for Science" column for Nerve.com. The job required him to participate in, and then write about, a wide range of offbeat sexual activities, which eventually made him into a self-described "sexpert." Stoddard's unusual job provides the foundation for his memoir, Working Stiff: The Misadventures of an Accidental Sexpert. In addition to anecdotes about Stoddard's sexual adventures, including being shrink-wrapped in plastic and participating in orgies, the book chronicles his earlier life in England, where he had been a painfully shy student. "I spent my time repelling women in droves," he said in remarks quoted by London Times Online contributor Fleur Britten. "I was hobbit-like in appearance and world view." Despite this acute lack of confidence, Stoddard found that he could do just about anything involving sex if it was part of his work. As he explained to Advocate writer David Jay Lasky, "I felt like a guinea pig, really. I had no control over what I did."

While acknowledging the explicit material in Working Stiff, many critics found the most enjoyable feature of the book to be its humor. A writer for Publishers Weekly considered the book "consistently hilarious" and "appealing." In Booklist, Joanne Wilkinson praised its "self-deprecating wit" and "surprising sweetness." Steve Almond, writing in the Los Angeles Times Book Review Online, expressed a different view, arguing that, for all its detailed descriptions of sex, Working Stiff is mostly a book about "immigrant yearning." Observing that Stoddard writes best when he "runs up against his own vulnerability" and honestly explores his emotions, Almond concluded that Working Stiff does not include enough of such insights, making the book "the literary equivalent of a quickie." Pop Matters contributor Jason B. Jones also noted the book's lack of emotional reflection, but nevertheless found the book funny and sweet. Observing that Stoddard comes off in the book "as a man full of vulnerability," Lasky called Working Stiff "one of the best works of creative nonfiction since Joan Didion's Slouching Towards Bethlehem."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

BOOKS

Stoddard, Grant, Working Stiff: The Misadventures of an Accidental Sexpert, HarperPerennial (New York, NY), 2007.

PERIODICALS

Advocate, February 27, 2007, David Jay Lasky, "Working Boy: Premier New York City Sex Columnist Grant Stoddard Explored America's Sexual Underworld and Lived to Tell about It," p. 58.

Booklist, November 1, 2006, Joanne Wilkinson, review of Working Stiff, p. 10.

Hollywood Reporter, March 7, 2007, Nicole Sperling, "Vantage Buys into ‘Stiff’ Sentences," p. 4.

Kirkus Reviews, October 1, 2006, review of Working Stiff, p. 1005.

Publishers Weekly, December 19, 2005, "Sex-capades of an Expat," p. 8; October 9, 2006, review of Working Stiff, p. 45.

ONLINE

Los Angeles Times Book Review Online,http://www.calendarlive.com/ (April 23, 2007), Steve Almond, review of Working Stiff.

PopMatters,http://www.popmatters.com/ (April 23, 2007), Jason B. Jones, "The Sexual Tastes of Urbanites, and the Transplanted Englishman Who Loved Them."

Times Online (London, England), http://www.women.timesonline.co.uk/ (Marcy 25, 2007), Fleur Britten, "The Accidental Sexpert."